Zombie Nation 03

“I want them found and I want them dead.” Sherman said into his phone. The world had changed vastly in the previous two decades but the west coast had cell phone coverage that was better than it ever had been before. Sherman himself had approved a massive upgrade to the system that sought out dead areas and put a tower in the middle of them. ‘Anything to keep people focused on work and not how I was running things.’

“Sherman, how nice to speak to you.” Grant was a distant relation to Sherman and the man currently elected leader of the country. Sherman was given a direct line to the president that he could call any time as a perk of being the first leader. Unlike any other first ‘heads of state’ there was a possibility that Sherman would use this perk for a very long time.

“They killed Jean and I want you to find them, bring them into the light and execute them.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re going on about, Sherman.”

“They killed Jean, Grant. I know you heard me.”

“I do hear you. What happened, Sherman? Where are you?”

‘As if you don’t know.’ Sherman thought to himself, he had known about the covert surveillance that Grant was running on him for the better part of a year and a half, wherever he went Sherman was being shadowed by someone.  Sherman expected the people watching him to pull up any time now, ‘There, there’s one.’

“Sherman? Are you there?”

“Yes, Grant, I think your lackeys are catching up with me now.”

“What lackeys?”

“The guys you’ve had shadowing me since you took office.”

“Bodyguards, nothing more…hold on a second, Sherman.” Grant said, over the phone Sherman heard him say, “Yes Darla, what is it? Can’t this wait? What?”

More of the muffled exchange took place while Sherman listened, he watched the zombies infiltrating the woods around the fire, they were carrying large caliber assault rifles. 17 millimeter ‘Shermans’ if he guessed correctly. ‘Very useful for taking down rogue zombies.’

“Sherman.” Grant spoke clearly into his ear.

“What?”

“Darla reports that my agents watching over you are not responding as of three minutes ago. You might want to get out of there.”

“Shit.”

“And turn off your phone, if they took out my task force they can probably track you…”

Sherman didn’t hear the rest as he entered in the emergency code one his phone. He set it underneath the downed tree he was next to face down so that the blinking lights wouldn’t give away his position and slowly belly crawled back towards the broken off top of the tree..

Despite the danger Sherman felt something he hadn’t in quite some time, almost alive again. ‘Even without adrenaline there is something about facing death that excites me.’ He rolled under the tree, breaking off a limb six centimeters in diameter as he did so, the loud crack from the breaking wood brought a hail of gunfire his way. The 17 millimeter bullets torn through the downed tree like it was cellophane and Sherman had to nod to himself in approval. ‘I knew that 17 mill would be effective against super zombies.’

One bullet by the merest chance  took off his left thumb as Sherman was crawling along. ‘Damn that never stops hurting.’ He had lived through dozens of assassination attempts before and some of the more successful had torn him limb from limb. ‘And now I am without my own body guards.’ Sherman thought ruefully. The fact that five of the attempts on his life had come from his own bodyguards was exactly why he didn’t have any today.

‘They don’t know all my tricks though, no one does.’Sherman focused his will as he crawled along and the gunfire slowly began to track to one side of him. Eventually Sherman felt safe enough to rise to his feet and make a short leap to one side. Most of the gunfire continued to track to his left, but one marksman fired at him as he leaped into the air. ‘Not so clever as I thought. Someone’s been reviewing security tapes of the failed attempts.’ Landing Sherman expected to hear voices calling out his location, instead along a wide swath of forest a barrage of gunfire erupted. ‘They don’t know, but they have an idea.’

Sherman looked ahead for lower ground; all he saw were more trees. ‘I shouldn’t have climbed out of the ravine, I should have just followed it down, maybe they would have passed over me. Time to speed up.’ Speeding up was a common ability and he had no doubts that some of his pursuers had that gift as well, but it should help him put some distance between him and those who didn’t.

After rounding a large tree, Sherman put it between him and the worst of the bullets tearing through the woods and started to run. He made it almost a kilometer before he felt the sharp tug of a bullet entering his thigh, the shot spun him around as he miss-stepped and he ended up slamming into a tree with the side of his body. The tree, a tall pine, shattered as he burst through it. Sherman rolled through another, smaller, tree and came to a rest against a pile of rocks. Looking down at his leg he winced at the destruction.

‘Might as well have cut the damned thing off. Explosive bullets? These boys want me dead.’  The good news seemed to be that there were much fewer bullets exploding near him, most still seemed to be focused further back. Sherman pulled himself around the rock pile and finally found a small decline beyond it. He belly crawled another twenty feet to get well below were anyone could shoot him and then sat up to examine his leg.

“Fuck.” Sherman normally didn’t swear, at least not unless it were necessary, but the sight of the blasted ends of his own femur was something he could never get used to. And it hurt. He used his hands to pull his leg together and concentrated on mending the damage, accelerating it.

‘It’s hard to believe that I had to die to fulfill my ‘mind over matter’ dreams.’ The bone knitted together and the first tendrils of muscle and flesh started to grow over the hand Sherman had inside of his own leg. He pulled back quickly and lay on his back, head up the incline. ‘One more trick.’ He thought as he heard low radio chatter above him.

“I have blood, Red 1.”

“Looks like you were right, he does move fast. Watch for him, even wounded he won’t be an easy kill.”

The reply into the headset was not meant to be heard by Sherman, but he had never let the extent of his enhanced abilities become public knowledge. There were three of them, no four. Sherman wrinkled his nose in disgust. No, three super zombies and a wolf. ‘That puts a spin on things. Time to disappear.’ And that is just what he did.

The four men carefully came over the crest of the hill, they each carried Sherman 17s and all were aimed at the decline. One man, dressed in homespun, loose clothing surveyed the area and slowly made his way down to where Sherman had been second before.

“He was here.”

“Where does the trail lead, Gray 2?” one of the other men asked.

The first man shook his head, “It doesn’t. It stops.”

“Impossible, circle and check until he figure out where he leaped to.”

“He didn’t leap, even leaping leaves a scent, he is just not here, Red 3.”

“Check anyway.” Red 3 ordered.

With a shrug Gray 2 started circling around where the body had lay moment before. He didn’t stop, even when he was making a circle fifty meters away from the original location. Red 2 through 4 formed a triangle facing outwards from where Sherman had disappeared, weapons at the ready.

Into Gray 2’s headset a new voice came on, “Gray 2, initiate ‘Cleaner’ protocol.”

Gray 2 continued on his route, “Say again, say again.”

“Mission aborted, initiate ‘Cleaner’ protocol.X23Bolo-Bolo-Bolo”

“Gray 2, cleaner protocol initiated. Astro-Scooby-Benji.”

“Confirm when complete.”

“I know my job. Out.”

Gray 2 reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a grenade sized bundle, with a flick of his thumb he armed the device and flung it as hard as he could towards the trio sixty meters away. Pin-point accuracy wasn’t necessary and the device silently exploded into an invisible spider web of filaments that carried another forty yards passed where the zombies were standing. Despite his speed and subtlety Red 3 was able to fire a shot off, the bullet caught Gray two in the stomach and hurtled him three meters back into the bushes. The zombie’s bodies crumbled into a dozen pieces along with their equipment, the expected results from the effects of the monofilament wire grenade.

Thirty seconds went by, the sounds of fighting died down relatively quickly and Gray 2 staggered to his feet. He checked the zombies bodies, made certain all were thoroughly dead again and stripped off his head set, which he tossed to the ground among the pieces of their bodies.

“I quit.” He said quietly; know if he had a cleaner protocol to follow, undoubtedly others did as well. Taking a step up the hill he bent down and lowered his face to the ground and pulled in a strong whiff of the original zombie they had been chasing. ‘I’ll know you when we next meet, whoever you are.’ Gray 2 tossed his own equipment into the pile, except for his loose belt, which he set carefully off to one side. Stripping naked, he folded his clothing into a bundle and tucked it into a net like back attached to the belt. The wound in his stomach had already closed, but he smeared the blood around with his hands to make sure he was alright. ‘At least they weren’t using silver.’ With that thankful thought in his mind he changed, bit into the heavy rubber plug sewn into his belt and lopped away.